How to Secure a Box Blind

[Deerhunter30]

I am planning to build a 4' X 7' box blind and set it up 7' in the air on 4 X 4s. I was thinking about buying an anchor kit for a portable building to secure it from blowing over.



What do you all think?

[Stolle]

Those will work if you can get them in the ground. Good luck if its Rocky. I used one to hold a 10' tower up. I screwed it into the ground in the center then ran cable to the 4 corners of the plat form. I then used turn buckles to tighten the cable.

[tipitina]

Interested in seeing/hearing your plans and dimensions. i guess you will bowhunt out of it? That anchor kit should be fine, unless like Stolle said, you have rocks.

[Deerhunter30]

It's a gun blind to take my kids (6 & 8) and my wife hunting in. We do not have rocky soil so that should not be a problem. I have the plans in AutoCAD if you can open them. It will be 4' X 7'. The walls will be about 5' tall and the peak of the roof will be about 6'. I will be using treated 2 X 4s on 16" centers covered in 3/4" plywood for the floor. the walls will be framed in 2 X 2s with 1/2" plywood. The windows will be about 3'-4" from the floor and 8" tall. I am going to hinge the plywood windows from the bottom so they will drop to the outside. The roof will be composite shingles over 1/2" plywood. It will be painted inside and out & have a carpeted floor.

The base will be 7' 4 X 4s with 2 X 4s bracing them. I'm planning on putting four anchors down )(one off each corner) with cable and turnbuckles going to the top of each corner of the frame.

[bwssr]

make sure you put some marking tape on the guy wires.....they hurt when you run into them!

[Deerhunter30]

Bruce,
Are you speaking from experience?

[Dale Moser]

You'll get more good out of the anchors if you run them off the center of the sides rather than the corners.

If they'll bite good you'll be fine, but I prefer trees and barbed wire.

[Clark]

good idea.

[jerp]

Here's one way to do it. Cut down a medium sized mesquite or other tree, leaving a 2ft stump. Set up blind straddling the stump. Run wire rope/cable from stump to eye bolts on the underside of the blind's floor or frame. Use a heavy-duty turnbuckle to cinch it down tight. I've used this method in places where the ground is either either too rocky or too sandy to use stakes.

[TexasCanesFan]

At Lowe's they sell a single black double bladed anchor that is made for tying down mobile homes. They sell a brass colored bolt that goes in the top as well. The top is more of a rectangle with 2 holes to put bolts in. They are much heavier than the set pictured above and work great.

We have our tower blinds, big VIP style blinds, secured with one of these in the center. We have the coated braided cable going to all 4 corners and use a turnbuckle in the middle to tighten in up.

It is by far the best method I have used to secure tower blinds.

["DOC"]

I do what jerp said except I use a cheap come-a-long from Harbor freight or Northern to tie my bow blinds down, make a 3 or 4 way yoke from the blind and hook come-a-long to it, make a wire wrap around the stump and hook other end of come-a-long to it, tighten up. Very easy to keep tight as it stretches.

[TexasCanesFan]

Go to this link and click on "soil anchors". These are the same ones we got from Lowe's and used.

http://www.randgsupply.com/Warehouse/SetUp/anchors.htm

[Catn' Around]

T-post off of each corner and guide wires with cable pullers to tighten then up. We had a stand blow over with the normal auger anchor.

[TXBRASS]

This is how I secured my blind to protect it against the high winds of Terrell County. An engineer acquaintance designed the system and described it like this:

Just force against force, physics on influence tending to change the motion of body or produce motion or stress in a stationary body.

Not exactly sure what that means but he said they never had one blown over after being attached with this setup. Pipe thru 2 barrels on each side of stand with cable wrapped around pipe. Put barrels up on 2x4's to tighten cable and once tight, remove boards and fill with rocks are dirt.



Yeah... I realize I'm reviving a really old thread but it may help someone.

[Big pig]

We set up a ranch King blind last year. The salesman there begged us to guy wire it down immediately. He suggested strongly to wire down to the middle
It was rocky so we used a bobcat to set a huge rock under it and turn-buckled down to it.

BP